The Life of Joan of Arc
By Anatole France
VOLUME 2 CHAPTER 15

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID—THE END OF THE SHEPHERD—LA DAME DES
ARMOISES

ON the evening, after the burning, the executioner, as was his wont,
went whining and begging to the monastery of the preaching friars. The
creature complained that he had found it very difficult to make an end
of Jeanne. According to a legend invented afterwards, he told the
monks that he feared damnation for having burned a saint.[985] Had he
actually spoken thus in the house of the Vice-Inquisitor he would have
been straightway cast into the lowest dungeon, there to await a trial
for heresy, which would have probably resulted in his being sentenced
to suffer the death he had inflicted on her whom he had called a
saint. And what could have led him to suppose that the woman condemned
by good Father Lemaistre and my Lord of Beauvais was not a bad woman?
The truth is that in the presence of these friars he arrogated to
himself merit for having executed a witch and taken pains therein,
wherefore he came to ask for his pot of wine. One of the monks, who
happened to be a friar preacher, Brother Pierre Bosquier, forgot
himself so far as to say that it was wrong to have condemned the[Pg ii.344]
Maid. These words, albeit they were heard by only a few persons, were
carried to the Inquisitor General. When he was summoned to answer for
them, Brother Pierre Bosquier declared very humbly that his words were
altogether wrong and tainted with heresy, and that indeed he had only
uttered them when he was full of wine. On his knees and with clasped
hands he entreated Holy Mother Church, his judges and the most
redoubtable lords to pardon him. Having regard to his repentance and
in consideration of his cloth and of his having spoken in a state of
intoxication, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor showed
indulgence to Brother Pierre Bosquier. By a sentence pronounced on the
8th of August, 1431, they condemned him to be imprisoned in the house
of the friars preachers and fed on bread and water until Easter.[986]

On the 12th of June the judges and counsellors, who had sat in
judgment on Jeanne, received letters of indemnity from the Great
Council. What was the object of these letters? Was it in case the
holders of them should be proceeded against by the French? But in that
event the letters would have done them more harm than good.[987]

The Lord Chancellor of England sent to the Emperor, to the Kings and
to the princes of Christendom, letters in Latin; to the prelates,
dukes, counts, lords, and all the towns of France, letters in
French.[988] Herein he made known unto them that King Henry and his
Counsellors had had sore pity on the Maid, and that if they had caused
her death it was through[Pg ii.345] their zeal for the faith and their
solicitude Christian folk.[989]

In like tenor did the University of Paris write to the Holy Father,
the Emperor and the College of Cardinals.[990]

On the 4th of July, the day of Saint-Martin-le-Bouillant, Master Jean
Graverent, Prior of the Jacobins, Inquisitor of the Faith, preached at
Saint-Martin-des-Champs. In his sermon he related the deeds of Jeanne,
and told how for her errors and shortcomings she had been delivered to
the secular judges and burned alive.

Then he added: "There were four, three of whom have been taken, to
wit, this Maid, Pierronne, and her companion. One, Catherine de la
Rochelle, still remaineth with the Armagnacs. Friar Richard, the
Franciscan, who attracted so great a multitude of folk when he
preached in Paris at the Innocents and elsewhere, directed these
women; he was their spiritual father."[991]

With Pierronne burned in Paris, her companion eating the bread of
bitterness and drinking the water of affliction in the prison of the
Church, and Jeanne burned at Rouen, the royal company of béguines
was now almost entirely annihilated. There only remained to the King
the holy dame of La Rochelle, who had escaped from the hands of the
Paris Official; but her indiscreet talk had rendered her
troublesome.[992][Pg ii.346] While his penitents were being discredited, good
Friar Richard himself had fallen on evil days. The Vicars in the
diocese of Poitiers and the Inquisitor of the Faith had forbidden him
to preach. The great orator, who had converted so many Christian folk,
could no longer thunder against gaming-tables and dice, against
women's finery, and mandrakes arrayed in magnificent attire. No longer
could he declare the coming of Antichrist nor prepare souls for the
terrible trials which were to herald the imminent end of the world. He
was ordered to lie under arrest in the Franciscan monastery at
Poitiers. And doubtless it was with no great docility that he
submitted to the sentence of his superiors; for on Friday, the 23rd of
March, 1431, we find the Ordinary and the Inquisitor, asking aid in
the execution of the sentence from the Parliament of Poitiers, which
did not refuse it. Why did Holy Church exercise such severity towards
a preacher endowed with so wondrous a power of moving sinful souls? We
may at any rate suspect the reason. For some time the English and
Burgundian clergy had been accusing him of apostasy and magic. Now,
owing to the unity of the Church in general and to that of the
Gallican Church in particular, owing also to the authority of that
bright sun of Christendom, the University of Paris, when a clerk was
suspected of error and heresy by the doctors of the English and
Burgundian party he came to be looked at askance by the clergy who
were loyal to King Charles. Especially was this so when in a matter
touching the Catholic faith, the University had pronounced against him
and in favour of the English. It is quite likely that the clerks of
Poitiers had been prejudiced against Friar Richard by Pierronne's
conviction and even by the Maid's trial.[Pg ii.347] The good brother, who
persisted in preaching the end of the world, was strongly suspected of
dealing in the black art. Wherefore, realising the fate which was
threatening him, he fled, and was never heard of again.[993]

None the less, however, did the counsellors of King Charles continue
to employ the devout in the army. At the time of the disappearance of
Friar Richard and his penitents, they were making use of a young
shepherd whom my Lord the Archbishop, Duke of Reims and Chancellor of
the kingdom, had proclaimed to be Jeanne's miraculous successor. And
it was in the following circumstance that the shepherd was permitted
to display his power.

The war continued. Twenty days after Jeanne's death the English in
great force marched to recapture the town of Louviers. They had
delayed till then, not, as some have stated, because they despaired of
succeeding in anything as long as the Maid lived, but because they
needed time to collect money and engines for the siege.[994] In the
July and August of this same year, at Senlis and at Beauvais, my Lord
of Reims, Chancellor of France and the Maréchal de Boussac, were
upholding the French cause. And we may be sure that my Lord of Reims
was upholding it with no little vigour since at the same time he was
defending the benefices which were so dear to him.[995][Pg ii.348] A Maid had
reconquered them, now he intended a lad to hold them. With this object
he employed the little shepherd, Guillaume, from the Lozère Mountains,
who, like Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Sienna, had
received stigmata. A party of French surprised the Regent at Mantes
and were on the point of taking him prisoner. The alarm was given to
the army besieging Louviers; and two or three companies of men-at-arms
were despatched. They hastened to Mantes, where they learnt that the
Regent had succeeded in reaching Paris. Thereupon, having been
reinforced by troops from Gournay and certain other English garrisons,
being some two thousand strong and commanded by the Earls of Warwick,
Arundel, Salisbury, and Suffolk, and by Lord Talbot and Sir Thomas
Kiriel, the English made bold to march upon Beauvais. The French,
informed of their approach, left the town at daybreak, and marched out
to meet them in the direction of Savignies. King Charles's men,
numbering between eight hundred and one thousand combatants, were
commanded by the Maréchal de Boussac, the Captains La Hire, Poton, and
others.[996]

The shepherd Guillaume, whom they believed to be sent of God, was at
their head, riding side-saddle and displaying the miraculous wounds in
his hands, his feet, and his left side.[997]

When they were about two and a half miles from the town, just when
they least expected it, a shower of arrows came down upon them. The
English, informed by their scouts of the French approach, had lain in
wait for them in a hollow of the road. Now[Pg ii.349] they attacked them closely
both in the van and in the rear. Each side fought valiantly. A
considerable number were slain, which was not the case in most of the
battles of those days, when few but the fugitives were killed. But the
French, feeling themselves surrounded, were seized with panic, and
thus brought about their own destruction. Most of them, with the
Maréchal de Boussac and Captain La Hire, fled to the town of Beauvais.
Captain Poton and the shepherd, Guillaume, remained in the hands of
the English, who returned to Rouen in triumph.[998]

Poton made sure of being ransomed in the usual manner. But the little
shepherd could not hope for such a fate; he was suspected of heresy
and magic; he had deceived Christian folk and accepted from them
idolatrous veneration. The signs of our Saviour's passion that he bore
upon him helped him not a whit; on the contrary the wounds, by the
French held to have been divinely imprinted, to the English seemed the
marks of the devil.

Guillaume, like the Maid, had been taken in the diocese of Beauvais.
The Lord Bishop of this town, Messire Pierre Cauchon, who had claimed
the right to try Jeanne, made a similar claim for Guillaume; and the
shepherd was granted what the Maid had been refused, he was cast into
an ecclesiastical prison.[999] He would seem to have been less
difficult to guard than Jeanne and also less important. But the
English had recently learnt what was involved in a trial by the
Inquisition; they now knew how lengthy and how punctilious it was.
Moreover, they did not see how it would profit them if this shepherd
were con[Pg ii.350]victed of heresy. If the French had set their hope of success
in war[1000] in Guillaume as they had done in Jeanne, then that hope
was but short-lived. To put the Armagnacs to shame by proving that
their shepherd lad came from the devil, that game was not worth the
candle. The youth was taken to Rouen and thence to Paris.[1001]

He had been a prisoner for four months when King Henry VI, who was
nine years old, came to Paris to be crowned in the church of Notre
Dame with the two crowns of France and England. With high pomp and
great rejoicing he made his entrance into the city on Sunday, the 16th
of December. Along the route of the procession, in the Rue du
Ponceau-Saint-Denys, had been constructed a fountain adorned with
three sirens; and from their midst rose a tall lily stalk, from the
buds and blossoms of which flowed streams of wine and milk. Folk
flocked to drink of the fountain; and around its basin men disguised
as savages entertained them with games and sham fights.

From the Porte Saint-Denys to the Hôtel Saint-Paul in the Marais, the
child King rode beneath a great azure canopy, embroidered with
flowers-de-luce in gold, borne first by the four aldermen hooded and
clothed in purple, then by the corporations, drapers, grocers,
money-changers, goldsmiths and hosiers. Before him went twenty-five
heralds and twenty-five trumpeters; followed by nine handsome men and
nine beautiful ladies, wearing magnificent armour and bearing great
shields, representing the nine preux and the nine preuses, also by
a number of knights and squires. In this brilliant[Pg ii.351] procession
appeared the little shepherd Guillaume; he no longer stretched out his
arms to show the wounds of the passion, for he was strongly
bound.[1002]

After the ceremony he was conducted back to prison, whence he was
taken later to be sewn in a sack and thrown into the Seine.[1003] Even
the French admitted that Guillaume was but a simpleton and that his
mission was not of God.[1004]

In 1433, the Constable, with the assistance of the Queen of Sicily,
caused the capture and planned the assassination of La Trémouille. It
was the custom of the nobles of that day to appoint counsellors for
King Charles and afterwards to kill them. However, the sword which was
to have caused the death of La Trémouille, owing to his corpulence,
failed to inflict a mortal wound. His life was saved, but his
influence was dead. King Charles tolerated the Constable as he had
tolerated the Sire de la Trémouille.[1005]

The latter left behind him the reputation of having been grasping and
indifferent to the welfare of the kingdom. Perhaps his greatest fault
was that he governed in a time of war and pillage, when friends and
foes alike were devouring the realm. He was charged with the
destruction of the Maid, of whom he was said to have been jealous.
This accusation proceeds from the House of Alençon, with whom the Lord
Chamberlain was not popular.[1006] On the contrary, it must be
admitted, that after the Lord Chan[Pg ii.352]cellor, La Trémouille was the
boldest in employing the Maid, and if later she did thwart his plans
there is nothing to prove that it was his intention to have her
destroyed by the English. She destroyed herself and was consumed by
her own zeal.

Rightly or wrongly, the Lord Chamberlain was held to be a bad man;
and, although his successor in the King's favour, the Duc de
Richemont, was avaricious, hard, violent, incredibly stupid, surly,
malicious, always beaten and always discontented, the exchange
appeared to be no loss. The Constable came in a fortunate hour, when
the Duke of Burgundy was making peace with the King of France.

In the words of a Carthusian friar, the English who had entered the
kingdom by the hole made in Duke John's head on the Bridge of
Montereau, only retained their hold on the kingdom by the hand of Duke
Philip. They were but few in number, and if the giant were to withdraw
his hand a breath of wind would suffice to blow them away. The Regent
died of sorrow and wrath, beholding the fulfilment of the horoscope of
King Henry VI: "Exeter shall lose what Monmouth hath won."[1007]

On the 13th of April, 1436, the Count of Richemont entered Paris. The
nursing mother of Burgundian clerks and Cabochien doctors, the
University herself, had helped to mediate peace.[1008]

Now, one month after Paris had returned to her allegiance to King
Charles, there appeared in Lorraine a certain damsel. She was about
twenty-five[Pg ii.353] years old. Hitherto she had been called Claude; but she
now made herself known to divers lords of the town of Metz as being
Jeanne the Maid.[1009]

At this time, Jeanne's father and eldest brother were dead.[1010]
Isabelle Romée was alive. Her two youngest sons were in the service of
the King of France, who had raised them to the rank of nobility and
given them the name of Du Lys. Jean, the eldest, called
Petit-Jean,[1011] had been appointed Bailie of Vermandois, then
Captain of Chartres. About this year, 1436, he was provost and captain
of Vaucouleurs.[1012]

The youngest, Pierre, or Pierrelot, who had fallen into the hands of
the Burgundians before Compiègne at the same time as Jeanne, had just
been liberated from the prison of the Bastard of Vergy.[1013]

Both brothers believed that their sister had been burned at Rouen. But
when they were told that she was living and wished to see them, they
appointed a meeting at La-Grange-aux-Ormes, a village in the meadows
of the Sablon, between the Seille and the[Pg ii.354] Moselle, about two and a
half miles south of Metz. They reached this place on the 20th of May.
There they saw her and recognised her immediately to be their sister;
and she recognised them to be her brothers.[1014]

She was accompanied by certain lords of Metz, among whom was a man
right noble, Messire Nicole Lowe, who was chamberlain to Charles
VII.[1015] By divers tokens these nobles recognised her to be the Maid
Jeanne who had taken King Charles to be crowned at Reims. These tokens
were certain signs on the skin.[1016] Now there was a prophecy
concerning Jeanne which stated her to have a little red mark beneath
the ear.[1017] But this prophecy was invented after the events to
which it referred. Consequently we may believe the Maid to have been
thus marked. Was this the token by which the nobles of Metz recognised
her?

We do not know by what means she claimed to have escaped death; but
there is reason to think[1018] that she attributed her deliverance to
her holiness. Did she say that an angel had saved her from the fire?
It might be read in books how in the ancient amphitheatres lions
licked the bare feet of virgins,[Pg ii.355] how boiling oil was as soothing as
balm to the bodies of holy martyrs; and how according to many of the
old stories nothing short of the sword could take the life of God's
maidens. These ancient histories rested on a sure foundation. But if
such tales had been related of the fifteenth century they might have
appeared less credible. And this damsel does not seem to have employed
them to adorn her adventure. She was probably content to say that
another woman had been burned in her place.

According to a confession she made afterwards, she came from Rome,
where, accoutred in harness of war, she had fought valiantly in the
service of Pope Eugenius. She may even have told the Lorrainers of the
feats of prowess she had there accomplished.

Now Jeanne had prophesied (at least so it was believed) that she would
die in battle against the infidel and that her mantle would fall upon
a maid of Rome. But such a saying, if it were known to these nobles of
Metz, would be more likely to denounce this so-called Jeanne as an
imposture than witness to the truth of her mission.[1019] However this
might be, they believed what this woman told them.

Perhaps, like many a noble of the republic,[1020] they were more
inclined to King Charles than to the Duke of Burgundy. And we may be
sure that, chivalrous knights as they were, they esteemed chivalry
wherever they found it; wherefore, because of her valour they admired
the Maid; and they made her good cheer.

Messire Nicole Lowe gave her a charger and a pair of hose. The charger
was worth thirty francs—a sum wellnigh royal—for of the two horses
which at Soissons and at Senlis the King gave the Maid Jeanne, one was
worth thirty-eight livres ten sous, and the other thirty-seven livres
ten sous.[1021] Not more than sixteen francs had been paid for the
horse with which she had been provided at Vaucouleurs.[1022]

Nicole Grognot, governor of the town,[1023] offered a sword to the
sister of the Du Lys brothers; Aubert Boullay presented her with a
hood.[1024]

She rode her horse with the same skill which seven years earlier, if
we may believe some rather mythical stories, had filled with wonder
the old Duke of Lorraine.[1025] And she spoke certain words to Messire
Nicole Lowe which confirmed him in his belief that she was indeed that
same Maid Jeanne who had fared forth into France. She had the ready
tongue of a prophetess, and spoke in symbols and parables, revealing
nought of her intent.

Her power would not come to her before Saint John the Baptist's Day,
she said. Now this was the very time which the Maid, after the Battle
of Patay, in 1429, had fixed for the extermination of the English in
France.[1026]

This prophecy had not been fulfilled and consequently had not been
mentioned again. Jeanne, if she ever uttered it, and it is quite
possible that she did, must have been the first to forget it.
Moreover, Saint John's Day was a term commonly cited in leases, fairs,
contracts, hirings, etc., and it is quite conceivable that the
calendar of a prophetess may have been the same as that of a labourer.

The day after their arrival at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Monday, the 21st
of May, the Du Lys brothers took her, whom they held to be their
sister, to that town of Vaucouleurs[1027] whither Isabelle Romée's
daughter had gone to see Sire Robert de Baudricourt. In this town, in
the year 1436, there were still living many persons of different
conditions, such as the Leroyer couple and the Seigneur Aubert
d'Ourches,[1028] who had seen Jeanne in February, 1429.

After a week at Vaucouleurs she went to Marville, a small town between
Corny and Pont-á-Mousson. There she spent Whitsuntide and abode for
three weeks in the house of one Jean Quenat.[1029] On her departure
she was visited by sundry inhabitants of Metz, who gave her jewels,
recognising her to[Pg ii.358] be the Maid of France.[1030] Jeanne, it will be
remembered, had been seen by divers knights of Metz at the time of
King Charles's coronation at Reims. At Marville, Geoffroy Desch,
following the example of Nicole Lowe, presented the so-called Jeanne
with a horse. Geoffroy Desch belonged to one of the most influential
families of the Republic of Metz. He was related to Jean Desch,
municipal secretary in 1429.[1031]

From Marville, she went on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Liance,
called Lienche by the Picards and known later as Notre Dame de Liesse.
At Liance was worshipped a black image of the Virgin, which, according
to tradition, had been brought by the crusaders from the Holy Land.
The chapel containing this image was situated between Laon and Reims.
It was said, by the priests who officiated there, to be one of the
halting places on the route of the coronation procession, where the
kings and their retinues were accustomed to stop on their return from
Reims; but this is very likely not to be true. Whether it were such a
halting place or no, there is no doubt that the folk of Metz displayed
a particular devotion to Our Lady of Liance; and it seemed fitting
that Jeanne, who had escaped from an English prison, should go and
give thanks for her marvellous deliverance to the Black Virgin of
Picardy.[1032]

Thence she went on her way to Arlon, to Elisabeth of Gorlitz, Duchess
of Luxembourg, an aunt by marriage of the Duke of Burgundy.[1033] She
was an old woman, who had been twice a widow. By extortion and
oppression she had made herself detested by her vassals. By this
princess Jeanne was well received. There was nothing strange in that.
Persons living holy lives and working miracles were much sought after
by princes and nobles who desired to discover secrets or to obtain the
fulfilment of some wish. And the Duchess of Luxembourg might well
believe this damsel to be the Maid Jeanne herself, since the brothers
Du Lys, the nobles of Metz and the folk of Vaucouleurs were of that
opinion.

For the generality of men, Jeanne's life and death were surrounded by
marvels and mysteries. Many had from the first doubted her having
perished by the hand of the executioner. Certain were curiously
reticent on this point; they said: "the English had her publicly burnt
at Rouen, or some other woman like her."[1034] Others confessed that
they did not know what had become of her.[1035]

Thus, when throughout Germany and France the[Pg ii.360] rumour spread that the
Maid was alive and had been seen near Metz, the tidings were variously
received. Some believed them, others did not. An ardent dispute, which
arose between two citizens of Arles, gives some idea of the emotion
aroused by such tidings. One maintained that the Maid was still alive;
the other asserted that she was dead; each one wagered that what he
said was true. This was no light wager, for it was made and registered
in the presence of a notary, on the 27th of June, 1436, only five
weeks after the interview at La Grange-aux-Ormes.[1036]

Meanwhile, in the beginning of August, the Maid's eldest brother, Jean
du Lys, called Petit-Jean, had gone to Orléans to announce that his
sister was alive. As a reward for these good tidings, he received for
himself and his followers ten pints of wine, twelve hens, two
goslings, and two leverets.[1037]

The birds had been purchased by two magistrates; the name of one,
Pierre Baratin, is to be found in the account books of the fortress,
in 1429,[1038] at the time of the expedition to Jargeau; the other was
an old man of sixty-six, a burgess passing rich, Aignan de
Saint-Mesmin.[1039]

Messengers were passing to and fro between the town of Duke Charles
and the town of the Duchess of Luxembourg. On the 9th of August a
letter from Arlon reached Orléans. About the middle of the month a
pursuivant arrived at Arlon. He was called[Pg ii.361] Cœur-de-Lis, in honour
of the heraldic symbol of the city of Orléans, which was a lily-bud, a
kind of trefoil. The magistrates of Orléans had sent him to Jeanne
with a letter, the contents of which are unknown. Jeanne gave him a
letter for the King, in which she probably requested an audience. He
took it straight to Loches, where King Charles was negotiating the
betrothal of his daughter Yolande to Prince Amedée of Savoie.[1040]

After forty-one days' journey the pursuivant returned to the
magistrates, who had despatched him on the 2nd of September. The
messenger complained of a great thirst, wherefore the magistrates,
according to their wont, had him served in the chamber of the
town-hall with bread, wine, pears, and green walnuts. This repast cost
the town two sous four deniers of Paris, while the pursuivant's
travelling expenses amounted to six livres which were paid in the
following month. The town varlet who provided the walnuts was that
same Jacquet Leprestre who had served during the siege. Another letter
from the Maid had been received by the magistrates on the 25th of
August.[1041]

Jean du Lys proceeded just as if his miracle-working sister had in
very deed been restored to him. He went to the King, to whom he
announced the wonderful tidings. Charles cannot have entirely
disbelieved them since he ordered Jean du Lys to be given a gratuity
of one hundred francs. Whereupon Jean promptly demanded these hundred
francs from the King's treasurer, who gave him twenty. The[Pg ii.362] coffers of
the victorious King were not full even then.

Having returned to Orléans, Jean appeared before the town-council. He
gave the magistrates to wit that he had only eight francs, a sum by no
means sufficient to enable him and four retainers to return to
Lorraine. The magistrates gave him twelve francs.[1042]

Every year until then the anniversary of the Maid had been celebrated
in the church of Saint-Sanxon[1043] on the eve of Corpus Christi and
on the previous day. In 1435, eight ecclesiastics of the four
mendicant orders sang a mass for the repose of Jeanne's soul. In this
year, 1436, the magistrates had four candles burnt, weighing together
nine and a half pounds, and pendent therefrom the Maid's escutcheon, a
silver shield bearing the crown of France. But when they heard the
Maid was alive they cancelled the arrangements for a funeral service
in her memory.[1044]

While these things were occurring in France, Jeanne was still with the
Duchess of Luxembourg. There she met the young Count Ulrich of
Wurtemberg, who refused to leave her. He had a handsome cuirasse made
for her and took her to Cologne. She still called herself the Maid of
France sent by God.[1045]

Since the 24th of June, Saint John the Baptist's[Pg ii.363] Day, her power had
returned to her. Count Ulrich, recognising her supernatural gifts,
entreated her to employ them on behalf of himself and his friends.
Being very contentious, he had become seriously involved in the schism
which was then rending asunder the diocese of Trèves. Two prelates
were contending for the see; one, Udalric of Manderscheit, appointed
by the chapter, the other Raban of Helmstat, Bishop of Speyer,
appointed by the Pope.[1046] Udalric took the field with a small force
and twice besieged and bombarded the town of which he called himself
the true shepherd. These proceedings brought the greater part of the
diocese on to his side.[1047] But although aged and infirm, Raban too
had weapons; they were spiritual but powerful: he pronounced an
interdict against all such as should espouse the cause of his rival.

Count Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who was among the most zealous of
Udalric's supporters, questioned the Maid of God concerning him.[1048]
Similar cases had been submitted to the first Jeanne when she was in
France. She had been asked, for example, which of the three popes,
Benedict, Martin, or Clement, was the true father of the faithful, and
without immediately pronouncing on the subject she had promised to
designate the Pope to whom obedience[Pg ii.364] was due, after she had reached
Paris and rested there.[1049] The second Jeanne replied with even more
assurance; she declared that she knew who was the true archbishop and
boasted that she would enthrone him.

According to her, it was Udalric of Manderscheit, he whom the Chapter
had appointed. But when Udalric was summoned before the Council of
Bâle, he was declared an usurper; and the fathers did what it was by
no means their unvarying rule to do,—they confirmed the nomination of
the Pope.

Unfortunately the Maid's intervention in this dispute attracted the
attention of the Inquisitor General of the city of Cologne, Heinrich
Kalt Eysen, an illustrious professor of theology. He inquired into the
rumours which were being circulated in the city touching the young
prince's protégée; and he learnt that she wore unseemly apparel,
danced with men, ate and drank more than she ought, and practised
magic. He was informed notably that in a certain assembly the Maid
tore a table-cloth and straightway restored it to its original
condition, and that having broken a glass against the wall she with
marvellous skill put all its pieces together again. Such deeds caused
Kalt Eysen to suspect her strongly of heresy and witchcraft. He
summoned her before his tribunal; she refused to appear. This
disobedience displeased the Inquisitor General, and he sent to fetch
the defaulter. But the young Count of Wurtemberg hid his Maid in his
house, and afterwards contrived to get her secretly out of the town.
Thus she escaped the fate of her whom she was willing only partially
to imitate. As he could do nothing else, the Inquisitor excommunicated
her.[1050] She took[Pg ii.365] refuge at Arlon with her protectress, the Duchess
of Luxembourg. There she met Robert des Armoises, Lord of Tichemont.
She may have seen him before, in the spring, at Marville, where he
usually resided. This nobleman was probably the son of Lord Richard,
Governor of the Duchy of Bar in 1416. Nothing is known of him, save
that he surrendered this territory to the foreigner without the Duke
of Bar's consent, and then beheld it confiscated and granted to the
Lord of Apremont on condition that he should conquer it.

It was not extraordinary that Lord Robert should be at Arlon, seeing
that his château of Tichemont was near this town. He was poor, albeit
of noble birth.[1051]

The so-called Maid married him,[1052] apparently with the approval of
the Duchess of Luxembourg. According to the opinion of the Holy
Inquisitor of Cologne, this marriage was contracted merely to protect
the woman against the interdict and to save her from the sword of the
Church.[1053]

Soon after her marriage she went to live at Metz in[Pg ii.366] her husband's
house, opposite the church of Sainte-Ségolène, over the Sainte-Barbe
Gate. Henceforth she was Jeanne du Lys, the Maid of France, the Lady
of Tichemont. By these names she is described in a contract dated the
7th of November, 1436, by which Robert des Armoises and his wife,
authorised by him, sell to Collard de Failly, squire, dwelling at
Marville, and to Poinsette, his wife, one quarter of the lordship of
Haraucourt. At the request of their dear friends, Messire Robert and
Dame Jeanne, Jean de Thoneletil, Lord of Villette, and Saubelet de
Dun, Provost of Marville, as well as the vendors, put their seals to
the contract to testify to its validity.[1054]

In her dwelling, opposite the Sainte-Ségolène Church, la Dame des
Armoises gave birth to two children.[1055] Somewhere in
Languedoc[1056] there was an honest squire who, when he heard of these
births, seriously doubted whether Jeanne the Maid and la Dame des
Armoises could be one and the same person. This was Jean d'Aulon, who
had once been Jeanne's steward. From information he had received from
women who knew, he did not believe her to be the kind of woman likely
to have children.[1057]

According to Brother Jean Nider, doctor in theology of the University
of Vienne, this fruitful union turned out badly. A priest, and, as he
says, a priest who might more appropriately be called a pander,
seduced this witch with words of love and carried her off. But Brother
Jean Nider adds that the priest[Pg ii.367] secretly took la Dame des Armoises to
Metz and there lived with her as his concubine.[1058] Now it is proved
that her own home was in that very town; hence we may conclude that
this friar preacher does not know what he is talking about.[1059]

The fact of the matter is that she did not remain longer than two
years in the shadow of Sainte-Ségolène.

Although she had married, it was by no means her intention to forswear
prophesying and chivalry. During her trial Jeanne had been asked by
the examiner: "Jeanne, was it not revealed to you that if you lost
your virginity your good fortune would cease and your Voices desert
you?" She denied that such things had been revealed to her. And when
he insisted, asking her whether she believed that if she were married
her Voices would still come to her, she answered like a good
Christian: "I know not, and I appeal to God."[1060] Jeanne des
Armoises likewise held that good fortune had not forsaken her on
account of her marriage. Moreover, in those days of prophecy there
were both widows and married women who, like Judith of Bethulia, acted
by divine inspiration. Such had been Dame Catherine de la Rochelle,
although perhaps after all she had not done anything so very
great.[1061]

In the summer of 1439, la Dame des Armoises went to Orléans. The
magistrates offered her wine and meat as a token of gladness and
devotion. On the first of August they gave her a dinner and presented[Pg ii.368]
her with two hundred and ten livres of Paris as an acknowledgment of
the service she had rendered to the town during the siege. These are
the very terms in which this expenditure is entered in the account
books of that city.[1062]

If the folk of Orléans did actually take her for the real Maid,
Jeanne, then it must have been more on account of the evidence of the
Du Lys brothers, than on that of their own eyes. For, when one comes
to think of it, they had seen her but very seldom. During that week in
May, she had only appeared before them armed and on horseback.
Afterwards in June, 1429, and January, 1430, she had merely passed
through the town. True it was she had been offered wine and the
magistrates had sat at table with her;[1063] but that was nine years
ago. And the lapse of nine years works many a change in a woman's
face. They had seen her last as a young girl, now they found her a
woman and the mother of two children. Moreover they were guided by the
opinion of her kinsfolk. Their attitude provokes some astonishment,
however, when one thinks of the conversation at the banquet, and of
the awkward and inconsistent remarks the dame must have uttered. If
they were not then undeceived, these burgesses must have been passing
simple and strongly prejudiced in favour of their guest.

And who can say that they were not? Who can say that, after having
given credence to the tidings brought by Jean du Lys, the townsfolk
did not begin to discover the imposture? That the belief in the[Pg ii.369]
survival of Jeanne was by no means general in the city, during the
visit of la Dame des Armoises, is proved by the entries in the
municipal accounts of sums expended on the funeral services, which we
have already mentioned. Supposing we abstract the years 1437 and 1438,
the anniversary service had at any rate been held in 1439, two days
before Corpus-Christi, and only about three months before the banquet
on the 1st of August.[1064] Thus these grateful burgesses of Orléans
were at one and the same time entertaining their benefactress at
banquets and saying masses in memory of her death.

La Dame des Armoises only spent a fortnight with them. She left the
city towards the end of July. Her departure would seem to have been
hasty and sudden. She was invited to a supper, at which she was to
have been presented with eight pints of wine, but when the wine was
served she had gone, and the banquet had to be held without her.[1065]
Jean Quillier and Thévanon of Bourges were present. This Thévanon may
have been that Thévenin Villedart, with whom Jeanne's brothers dwelt
during the siege.[1066] In Jean Quillier we recognise the young draper
who, in June, 1429, had furnished fine Brussels cloth of purple,
wherewith to make a gown for the Maid.[1067]

La Dame des Armoises had gone to Tours, where she gave herself out to
be the true Jeanne. She gave the Bailie of Touraine a letter for the
King; and the Bailie undertook to see that it was delivered to the
Prince, who was then at Orléans, having arrived[Pg ii.370] there but shortly
after Jeanne's departure. The Bailie of Touraine in 1439 was none
other than that Guillaume Bellier who ten years before as lieutenant
of Chinon had received the Maid into his house and committed her to
the care of his devout wife.[1068]

To the messenger, who bore this letter, Guillaume Bellier also gave a
note for the King written by himself, and "touching the deeds of la
Dame des Armoises."[1069] We know nothing of its purport.[1070]

Shortly afterwards the Dame went off into Poitou. There she placed
herself at the service of Seigneur Gille de Rais, Marshal of
France.[1071] He it was who in his early youth had conducted the Maid
to Orléans, had been with her throughout the coronation campaign, had
fought at her side before the walls of Paris. During Jeanne's
captivity he had occupied Louviers and pushed on boldly to Rouen. Now
throughout the length and breadth of his vast domains he was
kidnapping children, mingling magic with debauchery, and offering to
demons the blood and the limbs of his countless victims. His monstrous
doings spread terror round his castles of Tiffauges and Machecoul, and
already the hand of the Church was upon him.

According to the Holy Inquisitor of Cologne, la Dame des Armoises
practised magic; but it was not as an invoker of demons that the
Maréchal de Rais employed her; he placed her in authority over the[Pg ii.371]
men-at-arms,[1072] in somewhat the same position as Jeanne had
occupied at Lagny and Compiègne. Did she do great prowess? We do not
know. At any rate she did not hold her office long; and after her it
was bestowed on a Gascon squire, one Jean de Siquemville.[1073] In the
spring of 1440 she was near Paris.[1074]

For nearly two years and a half the great town had been loyal to King
Charles. He had entered the city, but had failed to restore it to
prosperity. Deserted houses were everywhere falling into ruins; wolves
penetrated into the suburbs and devoured little children.[1075] The
townsfolk, who had so recently been Burgundian, could not all forget
how the Maid in company with Friar Richard and the Armagnacs had
attacked the city on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady. There were
many, doubtless, who bore her ill will and believed she had been
burned for her sins; but her name no longer excited universal
reprobation as in 1429. Certain even among her former enemies regarded
her as a martyr to the cause of her liege lord.[1076] Even in Rouen
such an opinion was not unknown, and it was much more likely to be
held in the city of Paris which had lately turned French. At the
rumour that Jeanne was not dead, that she had been recognised by the
people of Orléans and was coming to Paris, the lower orders in the
city grew excited and disturbances were threatening.

Under Charles of Valois in 1440, the spirit of the University was just
the same as it had been under[Pg ii.372] Henry of Lancaster in 1431. It honoured
and respected the King of France, the guardian of its privileges and
the defender of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The illustrious
masters felt no remorse at having demanded and obtained the
chastisement of the rebel and heretic, Jeanne the Maid. Whosoever
persists in error is a heretic; whosoever essays and fails to
overthrow the powers that be is a rebel. It was God's will that in
1440 Charles of Valois should possess the city of Paris; it had not
been God's will in 1429; wherefore the Maid had striven against God.
With equal bitterness would the University, in 1440, have proceeded
against a Maid of the English.

The magistrates who had returned to their Paris homes from their long
dreary exile at Poitiers sat in the Parlement side by side with the
converted Burgundians.[1077] In the days of adversity these faithful
servants of King Charles had set the Maid to work, but now in 1440 it
was none of their business to maintain publicly the truth of her
mission and the purity of her faith. Burned by the English, that was
all very well. But a trial conducted by a bishop and a vice-inquisitor
with the concurrence of the University is not an English trial; it is
a trial at once essentially Gallican and essentially Catholic.
Jeanne's name was forever branded throughout Christendom. That
ecclesiastical sentence could be reversed by the Pope alone. But the
Pope had no intention of doing this. He was too much afraid of
displeasing the King of Catholic England; and moreover were he once to
admit that an inquisitor of the faith had pronounced a wrong sentence
he would undermine all human authority. The French[Pg ii.373] clerks submit and
are silent. In the assemblies of the clergy no one dares to utter
Jeanne's name.

Fortunately for them neither the doctors and masters of the University
nor the sometime members of the Parlement of Poitiers share the
popular delusion touching la Dame des Armoises. They have no doubt
that the Maid was burned at Rouen. And they fear lest this woman, who
gives herself out to be the deliverer of Orléans, may arouse a tumult
by her entrance into the city. Wherefore the Parlement and the
University send out men-at-arms to meet her. She is arrested and
brought to the Palais.[1078]

She was examined, tried and sentenced to be publicly exhibited. In the
Palais de Justice, leading up from the court called the Cour-de-Mai,
there was a marble slab on which malefactors were exhibited. La Dame
des Armoises was put up there and shown to the people whom she had
deceived. The usual sermon was preached at her and she was forced to
confess publicly.[1079]

She declared that she was not the Maid, that she was married to a
knight and had two sons. She told how one day, in her mother's
presence, she heard a woman speak slightingly of her; whereupon she
proceeded to attack the slanderer, and, when her mother restrained
her, she turned her blows against her parent. Had she not been in a
passion she would never have struck her mother. Notwithstanding this
provocation, here was a special case and one reserved for the papal
jurisdiction. Whosoever had raised his hand against his father or his
mother, as likewise against a priest or a clerk, must go and ask[Pg ii.374]
forgiveness of the Holy Father, to whom alone belonged the power of
convicting or acquitting the sinner. This was what she had done. "I
went to Rome," she said, "attired in man's apparel. I engaged as a
soldier in the war of the Holy Father Eugenius, and in this war I
twice committed homicide."

When had she journeyed to Rome? Probably before the exile of Pope
Eugenius to Florence, about the year 1433, when the condottieri of the
Duke of Milan were advancing to the gates of the Eternal City.[1080]

We do not find either the University, or the Ordinary, or the Grand
Inquisitor demanding the trial of this woman, who was suspected of
witchcraft and of homicide, and who was attired in unseemly garments.
She was not prosecuted as a heretic, doubtless because she was not
obstinate, and obstinacy alone constitutes heresy.

Henceforth she attracted no further attention. It is believed, but on
no very trustworthy evidence, that she ended by returning to Metz, to
her husband, le Chevalier des Armoises, and that she lived quietly and
respectably to a good old age, dwelling in the house over the door of
which were her armorial bearings, or rather those of Jeanne the Maid,
the sword, the crown and the Lilies.[1081]

The success of this fraud had endured four years. After all it is not
so very surprising. In every age[Pg ii.375] people have been loath to believe in
the final end of existences which have touched their imagination; they
will not admit that great personalities can be struck down by death
like ordinary folk; such an end to a noble career is repugnant to
them. Impostors, like la Dame des Armoises, never fail to find some
who will believe in them. And the Dame appeared at a time which was
singularly favourable to such a delusion; intellects had been dulled
by long suffering; communication between one district and another was
rendered impossible or difficult, and what was happening in one place
was unknown quite near at hand; in the minds of men there reigned
dimness, ignorance, confusion.

But even then folk would not have been imposed upon so long by this
pseudo-Jeanne had it not been for the support given her by the Du Lys
brothers. Were they her dupes or her accomplices? Dull-witted as they
may have been, it seems hardly credible that the adventuress could
have imposed upon them. Admitting that she very closely resembled La
Romée's daughter, the woman from La Grange-aux-Ormes cannot possibly
for any length of time have deceived two men who knew Jeanne
intimately, having been brought up with her and come with her into
France.

If they were not imposed upon, then how can we account for their
conduct? They had lost much when they lost their sister. When he
arrived at La Grange-aux-Ormes, Pierre du Lys had just quitted a
Burgundian prison; his ransom had been paid with his wife's dowry, and
he was then absolutely destitute.[1082] Jean, Bailie of Vermandois,
afterwards Governor of Chartres and about 1436 Bailie of Vau[Pg ii.376]couleurs,
was hardly more prosperous.[1083] Such circumstances explained much.
And yet it is unlikely that they of themselves alone and unsupported
would have played a game so difficult, so risky, and so dangerous.
From the little we know of their lives we should conclude that they
were both too simple, too naïf, too placid, to carry on such an
intrigue.

We are tempted to believe that they were urged on by some higher and
greater power. Who knows? Perhaps by certain indiscreet persons in the
service of the King of France. The condemnation and death of Jeanne
was a serious attack upon the prestige of Charles VII. May he not have
had in his household or among his counsellors certain subjects who
were rashly jealous enough to invent this appearance, in order to
spread abroad the belief that Jeanne the Maid had not died the death
of a witch, but that by virtue of her innocence and her holiness she
had escaped the flames? If this were so, then we may regard the
imposture of the pseudo-Jeanne, invented at a time when it seemed
impossible ever to obtain a papal revision of the trial of 1431, as an
attempt, surreptitious and fraudulent and speedily abandoned, to bring
about her rehabilitation.

Such a hypothesis would explain why the Du Lys brothers were not
punished or even disgraced, when they had put themselves in the wrong,
had deceived King and people and committed the crime of high treason.
Jean continued provost of Vaucouleurs for many a long year, and then,
when relieved of his office, received a sum of money in lieu of it.
Pierre, as well as his mother, La Romée, was living at Orléans. In
1443 he received from Duke Charles, who had returned to France three
years before, the grant[Pg ii.377] of an island in the Loire,
l'Île-aux-Bœufs,[1084] which was fair grazing land. Nevertheless,
he remained poor, and was constantly receiving help from the Duke and
the townsfolk of Orléans.[1085]